I'm dead?

"...you're dead," he completes.

That gives me pause, "I don't feel dead. What makes you think I'm dead?"

"Brian's identifying your body on site in your apartment with the county coroner." I can hear Adam suck in his breath through his mouth, but his avatar doesn't seem to breathe... creepy. "This is at least three kinds of impossible... unless... you're not Dan, but some hacker pretending."

I pause, "I've never told a soul about exactly what underwear I found when your suitcase broke open at Comicon six years ago. Nor did I ever write it down."

The creepy mannequin is dead silent for a moment, "Okay, so not a hacker..." my friend's voice sighs, "...but is a ghost in a machine any better?"

"I don't want to die, so...." I shrug, feeling my chest jiggle under my clothes, "...I will just have to get used to..." I gesture at myself.

"Okay, so... the obvious question: How?" My longtime friend continues.

"I have no idea," I shake my furry fox face, "but at least they just reset the server so I don’t need to worry about overleveled Player Killer builds from the trolls."

"Yes..." Adam chuckles darkly, "...you just need to worry about the regular Player Killer builds from trolls."

I cringe, "Yeah... the partial permadeath thing seemed like it'd add some spice, but..."

"...but now that it means something wprse than starting over at level one," the mannequin sounds like it's taking a breath, but still doesn't move.

"Well..." I consider, "...the Resurrection, Raise Dead, and Reincarnate lines of spells are supported, and I found a workaround my build can use buried under thirty menus. Dying is just a setback... in theory."

"You don't want to test it?" Adam chuckles.

"I do not.' I confirm.

"So..." the woman on a horse considers, "I was planning on spending a few hours in this revamped world anyway..."